Description
Book SynopsisDialogues Across Diasporas focuses on the shared historical legacies of members of the Africana and Latina diasporas, and the cultural impact of the African diaspora in the Americas. This book seeks to emphasize connections rather than divisions among different migratory ethnic communities via a reconfiguration of borders and ethnic identities. This collection of essays has three major goals: first, to foreground shared themes and strategies in the literary productions of women of Africana and Latina/o descent; second, to highlight the importance of the arts for community activism within shared diasporic spaces; and third, to illustrate the potential of artistic and activist collaborations among women from both groups across disciplinary, political, national, and ethnic divides. Dialogues across Diasporas is divided into three sections. The first section provides a theoretical overview of diasporic migrations, politics, and identities. It argues that diverse diasporas can unite around
Trade ReviewA stunning and unique contribution in the field of Africana Studies. Includes eloquent and highly readable work by female creative writers, community activists, and scholars of the African diaspora from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean region, and the United States. Notably, this collection not only emerged from a two-day symposium in El Paso del Norte in 2010, but from where a majority of the nineteen contributors presently live and work, or have had past experiential contact with the U.S. Mexico borderlands. This book expands the horizons of interdisciplinary and intersectional scholarship in the already established areas of American-, Woman-, and Cultural Studies. -- Marta E. Sanchez, Arizona State University
This edited collection of must-read writings proposes a new, holistic, and persuasive manner of framing diasporas. Dialogues across Diasporas creates the necessary intellectual space for examining issues that speak to the core of our own identities, in different geographic locations and across the disciplines. It provides the missing discursive parameters that will guide discussions in decades to come. -- William Luis, Vanderbilt University
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Part 1: Diasporic Debates: Exploring the Dynamics of Gender, Race, and Migration Chapter 1: ‘Harvesting’ Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Zora Neale Hurston’s Literary (Dis)Articulation of Being, Myriam J.A. Chancy Chapter 2: Not in Our Mother’s Image: Ekphrasis and Challenges to Recovering Afro-Mestizaje in Contemporary Latina/Chicana Historical Fiction, Marion Rohrleitner Chapter 3: Male Wives, Female Husbands: Immigration, Gender and Home in Calixthe Beyala’s “Le Petit Prince de Belleville and Maman a un Amant”, Ayo Abiétou Coly Chapter 4: Embodied Translation: Dominant Discourse and Communication with Migrant Bodies-as-Text, Karma R. Chávez Part 2: Diasporic Dances: Performing Language, History, and Community Chapter 5: in tongues–the trouble inside language. Imag[e]ining presence, Olumide Popoola Chapter 6: A Freedom Stolen, Yvette Christiansë Chapter 7: Reading Yvette Christiansë: Reflections from a Border Scholar Activist, Kathleen Staudt Chapter 8: Pin-Stripe Alley, Nelly Rosario Chapter 9: A Box of Chocolates, Angie Cruz Chapter 10: The Sun Once Again Sings to the People, Ana-Maurine Lara Chapter 11: “Talking Tagalog” and “The Eyes Open to a Cry”, Sasha Pimentel Chacón Chapter 12: An Afro-Mestizo Tamal: Remembering a Sensory and Sacred Encounter, Meredith E. Abarca Chapter 13: Recovering Afro-Mestiza Identities: A Borderlands Classroom, Selfa Chew Chapter 14: Discourses of Deference: Women and Submission in the Nigerian Diaspora, Veronica Savory McComb Chapter 15: Catherine Mary Ajizinga Chipembere of Malawi: Living an Extraordinary Life, Natasha Gordon-Chipembere Chapter 16: luchando, rimando, sacando, pintando: Young Female Artist Collectives in Ciudad Juárez, Kerry Doyle and Gabriela Durán Barraza Chapter 17: Constrained Activism: National Agendas versus Local Activities in Nongovernmental Organizations Serving Diasporic Women, Sarah E. Ryan and Milena Simões Murta
